


Chestnuts and Traditions

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 05:03:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17217521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: It’s Jake’s first winter as a newsie. Racetrack introduces him to one of their winter traditions.





	Chestnuts and Traditions

It was late December. Jake had to admit that the snow lined streets looked as pretty as a picture postcard. The sky was blue, the trees covered in heavy white blankets. Children milled about with rosy cheeks and bright red mittens, and chestnut sellers called out their wares.

Jake’s cheeks were the rosiest of all, on account of he as freezing. His hands were red, even without mittens to lend festive color to them. His shoes were also doing their part to make sure that he got his fair share of the winter wonderland that surrounded him, as their holes let in the snow so that his toes could experience it up close and personal.

Jake huffed out a breath, and it came out in a cloud of white. There was nothing to do but call out his headlines, and hope he could make up enough cash for a hot meal come nightfall. He was opening up his mouth to do just that, when suddenly a snowball hit him right in the back of his head.

“What’s the matter with you?!” Jake spun around, and found himself face to face its Racetrack Higgins. The other boy was just as ragged as Jake was, but he was smiling.

“Had to get your attention somehow. Your ears frozen shut, or what?”

“It’s your brain that’s frozen shut,” Jake shot back.

“Good thing for you my pockets ain’t.”

“Huh?”

“I’m about to buy you a bag of hot chestnuts, numbskull.”

Jake stared at Racetrack, slack-jawed with confusion. It didn’t quite add up. It wasn’t as though he and the other boy were close friends, so why did he want to buy him things?

“Your first year selling’ always the hardest,” Race explained, as if he’d read Jake’s mind. His arm looped over Jake’s shoulder as he guided him to the chestnut cart . “Your first winter, most of all.”

Jake didn’t answer right away. There was a lump in his throat that he wasn’t expecting at all. This time last year, he’d been sitting around the fire with his ma and sister, knowing that they were coming up on their last Christmas together, and not wanting to believe it.

“I’m fine,” Jake said. “Hardly even cold.”

“Never said you wasn’t. But we newsies, we have our holiday traditions. Don’t you think we don’t. Are you gonna eat your chestnuts or ain’t you?”

Jake nodded.

Racetrack was the first to buy chestnuts for him, but he wasn’t the last. Mush, Blink, and even Snitch had bought him more before the month was up. It was funny. Even though he’d been a newsie for months now, Jake had been too shy to talk much to these people. He wondered if he shouldn’t have been. Maybe the newsies were their own sort of family.


End file.
